‘Atlanta Robbin’ Season’ Review: Donald Glover Winner Is Even Better In Season 2

February 28, 2018 2:46pm

FX

Finally back for a second run of sorts under the moniker Atlanta Robbin’ Season,FX’s Emmy-winning series created by Donald Glover has in its characteristically unique manner actually improved on its own genius. In a rare move for any series in this era of exceptional television, Atlanta has gotten better with age — and I thought the first season was pretty damn great. Which is why, as I say in my video review above, it would be crime not to watch this piece of American artistry that is often weird, startling, weary, witty but almost always wonderful.

Starring the actor who goes by the moniker Childish Gambino in his Grammy-winning musical career and an increasingly widely versed cast of Lakeith Stanfield, Zazie Beetz and Brian Tyree Henry, the 11-episode second season that premieres March 1 continues with its gaze upon the periphery of the American Dream and the hip hop scene of the ATL, which provided the foundation for the first season that debuted in September 2016.

However, Atlanta Robbin’ Season turns over the form of the small screen by individualizing its episodes in such a way as to almost become its own short-film franchise. Utilizing a notion that Glover and his fellow executive producer and writer (and brother) Stephen have said they gleaned from the Steven Spielberg-EP’d 1990s Tiny Toons TV series and direct-to-video flick, ARS takes the ongoing tale of Princeton dropout Earn Marks (Donald Glover) and his desperate attempt to successfully manage the burgeoning rap career of his cousin Alfred (Henry), aka Paper Boi, and bends in it into near unimaginable situations and stances.

Those involve $100 bills, shoe theft, alleged alligators, Georgia gun-carrying laws, a fast-food holdup, family strains and languid depictions by Alfred’s main man Darius (Stanfield) of the evil Florida Man and traverse the comedic, the dramatic and the alarmingly absurd with extraordinary skill. They are executed so well that its easy to overlook their Bowie knife sharpness masquerading as a laid-back and removed temperament – easy, but wrong.

So, click on my video review of Atlanta Robbin’ Season above for more of my take on the series mostly directed by Hiro Murai (who’s also a co-executive producer). Are you ready to head back to Donald Glover and FX’s Atlanta tomorrow night? Trust me, you better be.

This article was printed from https://deadline.com/2018/02/atlanta-robbin-season-review-donald-glover-lakeith-stanfield-season-2-fx-video-1202306112/